The Human One? a Controversial CEB Translation Choice
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Open Theology 2016; 2: 895–906 Bible Translation Open Access Cynthia Long Westfall* The Human One? A Controversial CEB Translation Choice DOI 10.1515/opth-2016-0068 Received July 6, 2016; accepted September 30, 2016 Abstract: The choice of the editors of the Common English Bible (CEB) to translate Greek, Aramaic and English phrases as either “The Human One” or “the human being” has been controversial. However, it renders the “literal” meaning of a stock idiom that was in use both in the Aramaic of Jesus’ day and in the Hebrew and Aramaic language in the OT. For those who are not taught the literal meaning of the idiom, the traditional literalistic word-for-word translation of ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου as “the Son of Man” is either meaningless or misleading both in terms of Christology and for following the narrative of the Gospels. An accurate translation of the sense of the Aramaic and Hebrew idiom was virtually a necessary choice for semantic accuracy, and reflects the CEB’s purpose and translation theory. It is also a missional choice to render the Word of God in a way that is understood in the target audience’s language. However, the majority of the public that purchases Bibles has religious and theological commitments and tends to expect or even demand specific theological vocabulary and technical terms that are part of a specialized religious register, even though it is misunderstood. Therefore, the CEB engages in “norm-breaking” by attempting to choose vocabulary from registers that are currently in use in the English language in comparable contexts as those that are represented in the source text. Keywords: Bible translation; Common English Bible; the Human One; the Son of Man; formal equivalence; dynamic equivalence; functional equivalence; Skopos theory Introduction The English translation of the idiom ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου in the New Testament is often a problem for Bible translators who do not prescribe to a strict formal equivalence theory of translation. There is also a related in the Old Testament, and the Aramaic םָ֗דָא־ןֶב translation problem for rendering the singular and plural of bar enash, which is in Daniel and is generally acknowledged as the language that Jesus actually used in most registers.1 The choice of the editors of the Common English Bible (CEB) to translate Greek, Aramaic and English phrases as either ‘The Human One’ or ‘the human being’ has been a point of controversy.2 This paper will talk about the semantics of the idiom in the NT and its relationship to the corresponding idioms in Hebrew and Aramic in the OT. It will then evaluate the semantics of the English phrases ‘The Human 1 The majority of scholarship has assumed that Jesus spoke Aramaic, but given the linguistic composition of Palestine as a multi-lingual society, it is possible or probable that Jesus engaged in code-switching in which there was a correspondence between register and language selection. See Ong, The Multilingual Jesus. Register is described in Halliday and Hasan, Language, Context and Text, 29, as ‘a variety of language, corresponding to a variety of situation.’ See also Peterson, “Multilingualism, Multilectalism and Register Variation,” for a discussion of the interaction between multilingualism and register variation. 2 Most of the discussion and criticism has occurred online on discussion lists and blogs. *Corresponding author: Cynthia Long Westfall, McMaster Divinity College, Canada, E-mail: [email protected] © 2016 Cynthia Long Westfall, published by De Gruyter Open. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. 896 C. L. Westfall One’ and ‘the human being’ in contrast with the formal equivalent phrase ‘The Son of Man.’ Finally it will evaluate this translation choice in both in the context of the purpose of the translation and evaluate it in the light of modern translation theory.3 Word Study in the Source Text The Phrase ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου in the Greek New Testament In the Gospels, this phrase is Jesus’ favourite way of referring to himself (only in John 12:34 is this term used by somebody else citing him). It is used in the NT 86 times. It is used 69 times in the Synoptics, and twelve times in John. However, it is not used in the early church confessions, and it is used only four times in the rest of the NT. Three of the four times occur in narratives and the fourth is a citation of the OT. In Acts 7:56, Stephen refers to a vision of Jesus as he died, which would be understood in the context of the Synoptic tradition. Two are in Revelation where visions of Jesus described as ὅμοιον υἱὸν ἀνθρώπου allude to Daniel 7:13 (1:13, 14:14).4 The fourth occurence is in the citation of Ps. 8:4–6 in Heb. 2:6–8.5 These patterns suggest a high collocation of the idiom with genre (narrative) in its use by the early church. Many if not all of Jesus’ self-references were likely spoken in Aramaic. In Aramaic, the term is an idiom meaning “human being.”6 Bock claims that in certain texts, “There is no need to invoke Daniel 7 in order to make sense of the usage in these passages. Nor should such a background be assumed. Indeed, in such idiomatic uses Jesus simply presents himself as a human with certain rights and authority.”7 In all three synoptic gospels, Jesus constrains the idiom with layers of references to his suffering, but he also gives the idiom a special kind of authority, with messianic and apocalyptic associations.8 However, he controls the flow of information that defines the idiom. According to the gospel accounts, Jesus’ use of the idiom through the majority of his ministry was not transparent to his listeners. They realized that he was giving it significance (this would be clear from the contexts and the grammatical markedness resulting from the consistent addition of two articles), but they could not figure out for sure what he meant when he applied the idiom to himself. John describes the confusion of the crowds after his triumphal entry and shortly before the upper room discourse. The crowd says, “We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains forever. How can you say that the son of man must be lifted up? Who is this son of man?” (John 12:34 NRSV). His language was still ambivalent enough to keep the crowds confused. Similarly, in the Synoptic tradition, Jesus asks his disciples “Who do people say that the son of man is?” and the disciples associate the term with various prophets (John the Baptist, Elijah and Jeremiah), which would be consistent with the association of the term both generally to refer to a “human being” and specifically to refer to a prophet as in Ezekiel (Matt. 16:13–14).9 But when he asked, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:15–16). This suggests that Jesus was exploiting the meaning of the idiom in the linguistic system as well as the biblical tradition and giving the idiom new meaning when applied to himself. Also in the Synoptics, he first associates the idiom with Daniel 3 The content of this paper was originally presented 17 June 2016 at the McMaster Divinity College Bingham Colloquium on Linguistics and the Bible: Retrospect and Prospects. 4 Daniel 2:4–7:28 is written in Aramaic. The Aramaic phrase bar enash means ‘human being’ and is not a title. 5 Paul uses the plural of the idiom once in Eph. 3:5: “this mystery was not made known to humankind” (NRS). 6 See Casey, The Solution to the ‘Son of Man,’ 80, 67 and Casey, “The Son of Man Problem,” 11–12. However, Casey’s conclusion that Jesus “considered himself less unique than Christian scholarship on the whole supposes” does not follow in the way he is depicted by the gospel writers, because the role it plays in the Synoptic strategy that culminates in him emphasizing his unique role at the trial before the Sanhedrin. 7 Bock, “Son of Man,” 895. See also the direct association between “the son of man” and “humans” (ἀνθρώποις) in Matt 9:6, 8. 8 See Porter’s three categories in which he organizes the information that occurs with the Son of Man sayings in the Synoptics (Porter, Sacred Tradition, 58–62). 9 It is interesting to note that the Synoptic parallels in Mark 8:27–29 and Luke 9:18–20, Jesus asks “Who people [the crowds] say I am,” rather than using the idiom ‘the son of man.’ The Human One? A Controversial CEB Translation Choice 897 7 privately with the disciples in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:1–51//Mark 13:1–37//Luke. 21:5–36), which is after the Truimphal Entry. It was in his trial before the Sanhedrin that Jesus for the first time publically associated the idiom with Daniel 7.10 In Matt. 26:63–64 (Mark 14:62//Luke 22:69), “the high priest said to him, ‘I put you under oath before the living God, tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.’ Jesus said to him, ‘You have said so. But I tell you, From now on you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven’” (NRSV). That was the point at which they charged him with blasphemy—when he finally made a clear connection of the idiom with a passage that that would point to a possibly angelic or divine association.